Monthly Archives: July 2015

So I do owe a post for my last days of Florence, but before I do, I decided I should document the things I’ve been doing and reading in my interim period between abroad and beginning my work as a time capsule of how things deteriorate when I have too much time on my hands

-Studying for the MCATs.  On my first diagnostic test I got a 12/45.  I think the line between an 11 and a 12 is that a 12 requires you to not get fatally shot after writing your name on the exam. [In my defense, I didn’t answer any question that I didn’t know  or remember (aka anything about science) and it didn’t record any of my answers for an entire verbal reasoning passage]

-Zim, Rachil, and I have been working on a “television series”.  It is perhaps the best thing to happen to my life

-I’ve been watching a lot of Dance Moms.  My new thing is that I put on a leotard and tights in my house and imitate what they do on the show.  And then I make my family see how I’ve improved.  They were like “oh wow, Alyssa that’s great” the first time.  Now they don’t even look.  Except for when my mom said “Alyssa I think you’re going to get hurt and need surgery.  And with the summer and the beach you’re going to miss out on a lot”.

-I realized that no one I speak to has a designated activity for when they’re alone in their house.  I sing Broadway songs into my mirror.  Every single time I’m home alone.  I thought that was something everyone kind of did?

-I’ve become a Housewife.  A typical day involves dropping my mom off at elementary school, getting a mani/pedi, coffee, lunch dates with Rachil, picking my mom up from Elementary, running errands.  Also I’ve seen Rachil every single day.

-I’ve also been reading a lot of online articles and sending them to my friends.  Here are some journalistic passages/articles I’ve found entertaining:

‎”The Jets’ All-Pro center, who was an early NFL adopter of Twitter, tweeted at Jones (@LoloJones) to let her know that he is doing what he can to set her up with teammate Tim Tebow, the devoutly religious quarterback who is perhaps the highest profile virgin in sports.”  Really?  “The highest profile virgin in sports”?  Do you know what would suck?  To be on the D-list of sports virgins.  That sounds like a terrible place to be.

“”I was making out with this girl recently, and she said, ‘Tie me up and speak to me in an authoritative manner.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, you definitely picked that up from 50 Shades of Grey.’ I think we’re seeing more and more girls taking their cues from 50 Shades of Grey, and it creates this awkward, jarring contrast between native and artificial desire. I’m interested in exploring that tension.” Really turning the tables on us and making us see things from a different lens here.  Quality think piece. I love any conversation that include the phrase “exploring that tension”  From this cerebral publication

This article from Thought Catalog.   As someone who is gluten free and is FASCINATED by Cosmopolitan and their vast repertoire of repetitive sexual advice, I was in love with this.

I want this to be our new go-to pg song Art class stool.  Black backdrop.  Handheld, wired microphone.  Piano accompaniment.  

This superfluous  post about gelato is really just a method of procrastinating and not studying for midterms.  But that doesn’t make it any less true.

Some people say “nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels”.  Well I want to know what those people are eating, because I would wither away long before I got skinny enough for it to be better than gelato.

Let me start at the beginning: my mom likes to tell me ad nauseum that when I was a baby I was a pain in the ass when it came to feeding me.  Apparently I would eat in tiny spurts and then get distracted and want to be a part of whatever was going on around me.  Food just wasn’t as interesting to me as the rest of the world.

This all changed when I was 7 months old and went on a family vacation to Italy.  It was really hot and everyone was eating gelato so as my first real human food, my parents decided they should give the poor baby a little taste.

Rome: 1991: My first ever taste of gelato. Look at that determination in my face. No one was stopping me.

It apparently was the best thing I had every encountered in my life.  And I had encountered some great things: crawling, little rabbits that would play classical music. Suddenly nothing else in the world mattered.  My mom said that for the rest of the trip, people would hold gelato and I would face them and open my mouth, expectantly.  I still do that actually sometimes, ask Rebecca.  I was still a terrible eater, but when it came to gelato, I was the happiest little baby nugget in the entire world.

Rome, 1991. Apparently Lady Gaga was there to witness my demolition of crema gelato.

And that trend continued.  Growing up I was the biggest brat when it came to food, existing solely on pasta with butter, chicken nuggets, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off.  But I could never get enough desserts.

Rome, 2004. There is just so much I want to comment on, and so little time.

However, as much as I LOVE cupcakes, and cookies, and brownies, and froyo: there really is nothing in America as delicious as gelato.  Every single time I come back here I am reminded of this and just want to eat as much of it as I can before I leave.  What’s my favorite flavor?  That’s impossible.  They are all so delicious, there is not enough time in the world for me to get my full of each.  And now that I’m traveling to all different countries each weekend and eating my way through countless pastries and ice creams, I can definitively say that gelato trumps it all.  I can never wait to get back to Florence

Florence, 2010. Bet you didn’t think one person could have so many pictures of themselves eating gelato in Italy, did you?

So in conclusion: to those of you who think “there is nothing that tastes as good as being skinny feels”: even the 7 month-old version of myself knew that it was worth having to kick my legs a little more to have a taste of that delicious, sugary, creamy elixir.  If there is one thing I’m going to miss most about Florence when I leave here, its the abundance of gelato on every corner.